Alec Baldwin rails at media, says his MSNBC show may not come back

Alec Baldwin is blaming the media for his latest verbal outburst, which has endangered his MSNBC show "Up Late."

Alec Baldwin is blaming the media for his latest verbal outburst, which has endangered his MSNBC show "Up Late." (Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images)

Scott Collins

Alec Baldwin says his suspended MSNBC show is in serious jeopardy -- and for that, he's blaming mainly the "tabloid media."

"Whether the show comes back at all is at issue right now," the former "30 Rock" star wrote in a blog post Saturday, criticizing journalists for baiting and harassing him with tactics that "should be illegal."

Baldwin's talk show "Up Late" was suspended for two weeks Friday after TMZ published video of the combative actor climbing out of a car and berating a photographer with a crude gay slur -- just months after he had been excoriated for calling another journalist "a toxic little queen."

Running counter to an earlier apology posted on the show's website, Baldwin now denies using the word, although he seems to admit using a vulgar sexual term often directed against gay men. "I can assure you, with complete confidence, that a direct homophobic slur (or indirect one for that matter) is not spoken," Baldwin wrote of the incident.

"My friends who happen to be gay are baffled by this," he wrote. "They see me as one who has recently fought for marriage equality and has been a supporter of gay rights for many years. Now, the charge of being a 'homophobic bigot,' to quote one crusader in the gay community, is affixed."

He acknowledged that "Up Late" -- which has produced low ratings for MSNBC on Fridays -- may never return. And it looks certain that a special episode pegged to the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination won't see the light of day.

"The show is no doubt a work in progress and one that I believe featured some interesting guests and disseminated a good deal of interesting information," Baldwin wrote. "But if the show dies, its fate ends up being no different than the vast majority of start-up TV programming, and so be it."

But the media deserves much of the blame, he writes. "The press never turns the camera around on themselves. Least of all the tabloid press. My wife is a young mother with a newborn child. Yet reporters harass and hector her and our baby outside our home in ways that approximate a hockey brawl. It is shameful. And it should be illegal."

What do you think of Baldwin's latest rant? Is he right that he's being tormented by the media, or does he just need to get over himself?